Last summer I muttered on a NECC blog about dialing problems and firewall traversal systems. Yes, I think, mutter is the right verb. I find the current state of IP dialing to be a maze at best, a frustration for my schools at worst.But, there is good news! I said in January, with hope, that the vendors are working on these dialing problems. And just a few weeks later I get an email from directPacket Research, following up from my visit to their exhibit at NECC. Today we talked on the phone. They have a new feature called the Auto Attendant. You can read more about their whole firewall traversal system online, but here’s the snippets of what was most interesting to me.

• Two ways a call can come in.  The first is using DTMF tones. I’m still learning how this works, and I hear that the new endpoints and MCUs can do DTMF tones. More experimentation needed there for me to be comfortable with how that works. However it’s the second option that really perked up my ears. If a call coming in can’t use DTMF tones, you can enter the incoming IP address on the directPacket firewall traversal unit, and point it to the right e.164 alias of the endpoint behind it, and voila, the call goes to the right place. Now how cool is that! Kind of like how on the Polycom MGC you can enter the IP address and get into the right conference.
• All the H323 traffic is condensed into just one port.
• They say it’s non manufacturer specific (yeah!!) and it works with legacy units.

Of course I really want to see this in action and if I get some time after RAP to test one out I’ll definitely report it here. I was really glad to hear about this because it means the vendors are hearing our feedback and working on solutions so that we can call each other.